Al's epic odyssey"A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving." - Lao Tzu

Khoa Sok National Park, Thailand

It always
seems to rain when I leave a place or move around, I’ve been very lucky so far.
It rained pretty much the whole day whilst travelling from Koh Lanta to Khao
Sok. And boy did it rain!

I booked a
single night ahead on the recommendation of the same travel company that had
put me up at Moonwalk on Koh Lanta. I’d suggested a few resorts which get an
honorable mention in my Rough Guide to South East Asia,
but according to the tour operator they either didn’t answer or were too
expensive. The resort he booked me into was ‘Jungle Huts’, which failed to get
a mention in my guide or the Lonely Planet Thailand guide. That should have
flagged up a few concerns; however they had come up trumps with the Koh Lanta
Resort so I booked ahead a single night.

I paid 400
Baht (8 Pounds) in advance for a bungalow and when I arrived the chap led me in
the torrential rain to the shabbiest bungalow I’ve seen so far. It may have
been acceptable at half that price. It had a river view from the rickety balcony
and apparently had hot water, but those were its only redeeming features. As
soon as the rain lessened to a mere downpour I went off in search of something
a bit better. I found a pretty decent bungalow at Nung House (which is in my
guide) set back from the river and negotiated down to 300 Baht per night so I
decided to take that for a couple of nights and not head to Bangkok on the next
available bus.

The weather
wasn’t ideal for a couple of days in the forest; it lived up to its name as a
rain forest. I managed a few short walks in between showers but didn’t go on
anything major although the pictures of some of the longer walks do look
stunning. There was a bit of wildlife in the vicinity of the bungalows, I found
three blind (baby) mice in my dresser drawer together with their mother. There
was also plenty of exotic bird and insect life, but no leopard or tiger which
are supposed to roam the jungle.

Khoa Sok is
very quiet at this time of year. Given the weather that I experienced, it
probably wasn’t that surprising. The river was in full spate and yet they still
had canoeing although I didn’t see anyone going down on tubes which was another
option. That would have been exciting.

I decided
that after having nearly a week off of anybody trying to sell me a suit, DVD or
a massage it was time to head away from the peace and quiet and back to the big
city lights. Unfortunately the cheapest form of transport back to Bangkok is a 15 hour
overnight bus trip which wasn’t that appealing, the alternatives are a sleeper
train or a flight from Surat Thani. I took the cowardly option and booked a
flight to Bangkok.
I’ll decide what to do next when I get there. I have less than a week before I
head to Cambodia.

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